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It says that large enough random data will eventually generate data with a specific meaning to us. Check out this paper from the University of Texas.

One of my science group teammates in the Faculty of Engineering, UNAM already worked on this phenomenon. They built an associative machine (AI pattern recognition program) using a block of memory filled with random data.

In short, Ramsey Theory is nothing but the scientific explanation behind the Bible Code: It's RANDOM DATA. Period.

Well, the guys at Princeton just earned a "-5, stupid" moderation from me. Bet they didn't predict this ;-)

Join me in sending an e-mail to CSICOP and requesting that it investigate this supposed black box predicting the future.

Believing in superstitious quackery like this black box has serious ramifications. If enough people believed in this nonsense, then we would end up in setting national policy based on this block box. How would you like the USA to be guided by witches and warlocks?

I posted above as anonymous coward about this, so I don't mean to be redundant, but this is a great article by a great organization:

http://www.csicop.org/articles/shroud/index2.html

Well, the 115 people who have posted in the first 1/2 hour seem to disagree that it is uninteresting. :-) For those interested in this kind of thing, might I suggest considering a subscription to the Skeptical Inquirer, published by http://www.csicop.org?

I am not affiliated with them, but am a long-time subscriber. They cover the Shroud of Turin, UFO's, ghosts, etc., etc. I as a scientist love them, and I was surprised that my mother, who is somewhat of a believer in the paranormal, also likes them. From their website:

The Magazine for Science and Reason

For a fast-growing number of discriminating persons, the Skeptical Inquirer is a welcome breath of fresh air, separating fact from myth in the flood of occultism and pseudoscience on the scene today.

This dynamic magazine, published by the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, tells you what the scientific community knows about claims of the paranormal, as opposed to the sensationalism often presented by the press, television, and movies.

Well, the 115 people who have posted in the first 1/2 hour seem to disagree that it is uninteresting. :-) For those interested in this kind of thing, might I suggest considering a subscription to the Skeptical Inquirer, published by http://www.csicop.org?

I am not affiliated with them, but am a long-time subscriber. They cover the Shroud of Turin, UFO's, ghosts, etc., etc. I as a scientist love them, and I was surprised that my mother, who is somewhat of a believer in the paranormal, also likes them. From their website:

The Magazine for Science and Reason

For a fast-growing number of discriminating persons, the Skeptical Inquirer is a welcome breath of fresh air, separating fact from myth in the flood of occultism and pseudoscience on the scene today.

This dynamic magazine, published by the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, tells you what the scientific community knows about claims of the paranormal, as opposed to the sensationalism often presented by the press, television, and movies.

Now you've done it! The Buzzinator is probably on his way already. Fists of doom!

As a "skeptic" I found both Jon's comments on Crossfire and this article to be enjoyable -- in the sense that here's someone saying what we've known to be true for years.

If any of you feel this way, you might enjoy some fine skeptical sites such as:

The James Randi Educational Foundation
http://www.randi.org/

Committe for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal
http://www.csicop.org/

Bad Astronomy
http://www.badastronomy.com/

Might be a clever hoax. Uri Geller (mentioned on page 56) has already been debunked by James Randi

If for real, should be great fodder for CSICOP (Commitee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal) which once boasted Carl Sagan, etc.

But the way they press all the 'psychic' buttons suggests an elaborate hoax.

It turns out that all of the victims had several things in common. They were overweight. All were immobilized by age, illness, sleeping pills, or a really long bender. All were smoking. The theory is now their clothes caught fire, which quickly spread to the layers of fat under their skin.

I'm particularly attuned since I'm taking a probability class this semester.

There is a really excellent Web article titled Coincidences: Remarkable or Random? that I came across.

The thing that really caught my eye was where it shows mathematically that if you randomly select any twenty-three people from anywhere, there is a 50 percent probability that at least two of those people share the same birthdate. Nifty stuff.

You didn't follow any of the links already supplied in the grandparent post, did you? Is your mind so made up that you don't want to be confused by any facts?

Dude, there was a total of one link in that post, and I did follow it. Siting text references doesn't work so well in a web-based forum; please endevor to find web-based versions of the articles, or paraphrase them in your own post.

On your opinion that I should make up my mind and not getting confused by facts:

Sir, I've already thought myself through a major philosophy shift once in my life, away from the very things you are arguing for and towards a more skeptical outlook on the world. That itself should point out to you that I am convincible, though I doubt you will take me at my word.

But you are NOT going to convince me by saying "Follow the bouncing ball very slowly and carefully!" I've been careful not to talk down to you through all this, you can at least have the courtest to do so. And you are not going to convince me *easily*, I'll tell you that for free.

A Google search for: "Stephen Meyer" "Discovery Institute" "Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington" turned up the following very interesting link:

Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal : Déjà vu All Over Again by Chris Mooney. It sheds some much-needed light over this paper, and the drive to get Intelligent Design published in reputible journals. (Here's a hint: it all boils down to politics.) It reveals that the three reviewers who approved the article are unnamed, and that the editor of the journal was sympathetic to the Intelligent Design cause. It is interesting reading, more interesting than your link in any case. And linked from that article is The Panda's Thumb : Meyer's Hopeless Monster, by three named, mainstream scientists refuting the article you presented, and the Biological Society of Washington itself has repudated the article.

It is trivial to show that self-creation by accident is mathematically well beyond impossible. There's not nearly enough time (1E17 seconds) and materials (1E81 atoms) available under even the most stupidly optimistic of circumstances to achieve the required result.

I disagree -- those are huge, huge numbers you're talking about. You're going to have to explain that one to me.

Seconds: 100,000,000,000,000,000.

Atoms:
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,00 0,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,00 0,000,000.

The Atom number, while nineteen zeros short, is not far in length to actually giving us a use for the word googol. The seconds number is a bit suspect: there is an average of around 31557600 seconds in a year (including leap years). Diving your number by that brings up a figure of about 3.17 billion years, which is short of the period of time the Earth has been around, and is far short of the universe's estimated age.

But you should realize that the scientific community is far from certain about their numbers. I don't think anyone stakes definite claims for either of them. Science works by trying to figure things out, not being certain about them beforehand. Otherwise, how would Einstein have been possible?

Bring on the self-structuring molecules, bring them all together and interact them at incredible rates in amazing quantities, do what you please, it still falls utterly flat.

Again, those are not small numbers up there. Rates do not have to be amazing within that time frame. And even if they are, it's possible that those processes got an accidental boost to bring forth life on Earth, due to the so-called anthropic principle: it happened, because we

And they made Buzz Aldrin sit in the back. No wonder he gets cranky if someone says that he didn't go to the Moon!

Be careful. Belief is complicated, and the typical atheist conception of a religious person is somewhat naieve. You might be interested in this article and this book. Both are written by Pascal Boyer, and he's done some great preliminary analysis of what drives religious beliefs.

maybe now they'll finally find Planet Vulcan

The other magazines I subscribe to are:

The Diplomat (an Australian perspective on world affairs, but much more lightweight than the Economist)
History Today (British history magazine, which is what I'm studying. A bit too middle-brow though *sniff*)
Fortean Times (my favouritest mag ever, a monthly dose of high strangeness)
Skeptical Inquirer (a necessary counterbalance to Fortean Times)
The Skeptic (a necessary counterbalance to Skeptical Inquirer!)
Warship (an Australian naval history/news etc magazine, very much a small press sort of thing. Don't know if I'll keep it up, may look for something a bit more professional)

I probably don't need two skeptical mags. I do feel the lack of straight science in there; tried Scientific American for a while but it's a bit too detailed for me; New Scientist is more like it but as it's a weekly, between that and the Economist I'd never get to read any books! A compromise might be an astronomy (my first love) mag like Sky & Telescope, but then I'd like something with a bit more aerospace type stuff ... Oh well, I read too much anyway!

failure of a slashdoter. Below is the link:

here

I always used to love spending time with Charlie at Workman center each year. He was my undergraduate advisor.

Turns out he was pretty good at making UFO's as well. At least there sure are a lot of people who believe the weather balloons he used to make during project mogul were UFO's!

I miss those afternoon summer thunderstorms in Socorro.

Plato's references to Atlantis, specifically, are basically a sequel to his Republic, which is in turn an idealized version of the Spartan state. The Republic is mostly about an anti-democratic reaction to the direction Athens chose to go. The Atlantis myth is essentially a way of describing early Athens as virtuously fighting against an outside invader. Plato was using his created myth, to quote a skeptic's article on this, as a "noble lie."

The specific physical characteristics being cited in this article are so ludicrously overgeneral that I'm amazed they don't have more than one match to go on. All you have to know is what the article says: "The features were originally spotted by Werner Wickboldt, a lecturer and Atlantis enthusiast who studied photographs from across the Mediterranean for signs of the city described by Plato." This is another Heinrich Schliemann. They'll be planting golden masks next.

(Hey, I've found another ancient city of Troy! It's an Anasazi settlement. Go ahead... prove it ain't. Or maybe Atlantis was on Santorini. Or was that Troy? Or Tyre. Yeah... Tyre.)

Graham Hancock's works, especially Fingerprints of the Gods, have been extensively debunked. Skeptical Inquirer has done a critical examination of the book and found it to be "critically flawed." I'm sorry, but you're dealing with a crackpot, and it would be a good idea to avoid his ideas in the future.

You'd think that people are too cynical and worldly-wise to fall for this sort of thing, but as recently as 1988 some radio listeners in Portugal fell for the old War of the Worlds trick - there were earlier episodes in 1944, 1949 and 1973, mostly from Latin America. In fact, I seem to recall something about the ads for the film Independence Day being taken for real in Spain, but I can't dig up any online references.

• James Randi Foundation - Randi is a stage magician who now spends his time in the debunking business. His weekly column sometimes degenerates into a rant (he's not known for his diplomacy), but overall it's an interesting read. He also offers a $1 million prize for reproducable paranormal phenomenon.
• CSICOP
• Skeptic Magazine

Other interesting sites are CSICOP and Skeptic Magazine.

I could have predicted that the true belivers who had no problem believing the original Bigfoot film clip was real with little evidence would immediately say there was not enough evidence the hoax story is true. They will dig for minor nits to invalidate the hoaxter's story when they gloss over a hundred problems with the original story.

The same thing happened when it was revealed that the Loch Ness Monster picture was actually a toy submarine and when the Air Force released the true information on the formerly Top Secret Project Mogul which is what really happened at Roswell.

"It can't be true! Why did they lie all this time? What were they covering up?"

Maybe it was because the project was Top Secret, get it?

I could have predicted that the true belivers who had no problem believing the original Bigfoot film clip was real with little evidence would immediately say there was not enough evidence the hoax story is true. They will dig for minor nits to invalidate the hoaxter's story when they gloss over a hundred problems with the original story.

The same thing happened when it was revealed that the Loch Ness Monster picture was actually a toy submarine and when the Air Force released the true information on the formerly Top Secret Project Mogul which is what really happened at Roswell.

"It can't be true! Why did they lie all this time? What were they covering up?"

Maybe it was because the project was Top Secret, get it?

Ha, I have no troubles whatsoever with this, mysticism not required, I am quite at ease with my materialist worldview. I was merely describing what happens to the vast majority of people.

You've forgotten the word "ignorant" ;-).

Well, lets not get personal, shall we. What is one man's ignorance and delusion is another's sane and methodical approach to the world. I was trying to be diplomatic but as you can probably imagine, talking to a materialist about "energy of Judgement" is about as futile as it is going to get.

As to the qigong I can only go by pieces like this.

On the subject women and sexual exploits I shall remain mute although I would admit that every discipline has its masters and I am probably not considered one. But then again, for me, unlike for some others, that not the goal of my existence.

If mathematics are not universal, then the mathematical reasoning that can be conducted to deduce the laws of nature is also not universal.

You're assuming a relationship between mathematics and the "laws of nature" that isn't there. As Einstein put it, As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."

Mathematics is as socially constructed as any other form of language. It is based on axioms and defintions, not observation of reality. We select those axioms and definitions in a way to be useful to us, just as we select for those lingustic constructs that are useful. But this selection is based on our desire to communicate with others - it is a social construct. Once upon a time if you asked mathematicians what nubmer, when squared, gave negative one, they'd say there was no such number; now, any bright middle school kids know it's i.

"Reality" is also to a large degree socially constructed, since all can ever speak of is our observations, which are socially conditioned. You see what you expect to see or are trained to see. (You don't see the fnords, or Sombody Else's Problem, while the hypothetical planet Vulcan (the one inside the orbit of Mercury, not Mr. Spock's home) was observed several times, as were Blondlot's N-rays.) This is why double-blind protocols are used - though if everyone involved has an expectation, that doesn't help.

What we think of as "reality" is just a model that we mostly share. The electron, for example, is not a component of human experience but a component of a model that unifies and predicts many observations. That is a very good and useful model, but it is entirely conceivable that some extra-terrestrial civilization has (or some future human civilization will have) a model that is just as useful but doesn't contain anything like electrons. (Just like Chinese Medicine has a "patterne-thinking" model of the human being that is radically different than and incompatible with the reductionist model, yet is extremely useful.) What would such an electron-free model look like? I can't tell you, I'm too conditioned by the electron model.

Remember: for any set of observations, there are an infinite number of hypothesis to fit them. There's no end to the curves you can plot through any finite set of data points. We see the points and call them a line, but it ain't necessarily so. The best we can do is eliminate lines that don't go anywhere near the points.

Why is it that hard-core science types are such assholes? I guess you spout the word "pseudoscience" and read Skeptical Inquirer? Believe me, I was just like you a few years back. I was reading Sagan, Paul Kurtz, and all the other "inerrant science" shit. Pretty soon I was into secular humanism and thinking like an atheist. Then I grew up and rejected the CSICOP ideas. You should try it sometime. Free your mind a bit ;)

Err , sorry forgot the tags... here is the link to the Buzz Aldrin punch video.

I neither insulted you nor hinted that you don't know what you are talking about.

Surely not, since this is the first I've posted to the thread.

"You're wrong, you're talking nonsense, and you don't even know it" isn't condenscending if it's true.

If it's possible, then we can do it.

So what? Penetrating the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle isn't possible, even in principle.

I'm more a student of humanity than science. And I've seen it more than once, the common belief that we can't do something, only to find out later ( days, years, centuries ) that it is possible.

Unfortunately, your misconception is not neutral, which is why I post. (And remember, you're not the only reader; I realize I don't stand a chance in hell of convincing you, because you're so certain you're right you have the confidence to post on the topic. Yes, the equivalent logic applies equally to me.) Unrealistic expectations fuel Luddite tendencies and fuel unrealistic extrapolations into the future.

Unfortunately, when acted on, these cause suboptimal results, sometimes even killing people. Consider the effects of unrealistic expectations on the environmentalism issues; what if we act as if you're right and always assume there's a way to clean up our environmental messes before they kill us, when the science says we're wrong?

And I've seen it more than once, the common belief that we can't do something, only to find out later ( days, years, centuries ) that it is possible.

Somewhat ironically, it shows that you're a student of ancient history but have not been keeping up to date on recent history. History doesn't support the idea that we're going to find a way past the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. History has in fact shown the increasing understanding and refinement of boundaries and limits, ever since the first ones were discovered.

You should not be surprised when people don't buy your Argument from Ignorance, or call it for what it is. The arrogance lies in your thinking that your knowlege, despite its nonexistance (I note you could not possibly have studied the Halting Problem or Godel's Incompleteness Theorum in the time period since your last post), is so much greater then scientists and mathematicians that you can contradict them on the fundamentals of the universe. That is arrogance, that is inflated self-assessment.

Of course that doesn't mean they're always right; but they don't have to be to still be right about certain limits.

This is your cue (especially due to my previous parenthetical note) to now go find some cursory overview of Godel's Theorem, read it in two minutes, and explain why one of the greatest mathematical acheivements in the history of man that proves certain things are impossible doesn't prove that certain things are impossible. Here, let me help with that first part. OK, this is a little condenscending, but can I just say "been here, done this?" Have fun.

Sure, I bet Buzz Aldrin helped you with the coverup...

There have been many claims of abductions, but no real evidence. The similarity of abductee stories can be explained by TV,books combined with sleep paralysis. For an interesting article on this see http://www.csicop.org/si/9805/abduction.html you can also search for "sleep paralysis" on google.

Here is a link the famous Buzz Aldrin "punch" video wherein he punches some moron who calls him a liar about having ever been to the moon. Posted for your enjoyment :)

The odds of a mutation creating all parts simultaneously are astronomical, and consequently, the only accepted theory that can sanely describe such a thing is intelligent design

Intelligent Design is an "accepted" theory?! I think you've been smoking too many tomacco leaves...

I believe it was first broadcast on American radio on Sunday, October 30th just after 8pm EST. Interestingly, from the "It can't happen again" department, an adaptation of the show played in Quito, Ecuador in 1949 and caused riots. The radio station building was set on fire after citizens discovered it was a fraud. More recently, it cause problems in northen Portugal in 1988. For more details see this csicop page.

2. Aspartame in MRPs : Almost ALL meal replacement powders sold in GNC have aspartame. Check aspartamekills.com for known risks. Lately, a few ( eg. MET-RX ) have switched to suclarose and prominently advertize "No aspartame", but doesn't that make then liable since they have sold aspartame-laced powders for so many years before making the switch.

I'd never heard of this, so I checked out the site and it set off my "Steve Gibson" meter. On a hunch, I did a google for "aspartame skeptic", and a few links in I found the following article: http://www.csicop.org/cmi/reviews/aspartame.html. I'll wait a few years for the final verdict myself, by which time sucralosekills.org should be up and some new sweetener will be in vogue.

The rest of your post is a bit exaggerated in places but basically spot-on. Personally, I would have extended the ephedra rant to include all "thermogenic" products, as they're all going to (by definition) be similar in effect.

However, the murder rate in Japan is currently hovering at one in 100,000, where the murder rate in the US is at 7.7 in 100,000. This does not count suicides though, which have gotten hideously high (18 in 100,000) in Japan. However, I haven't seen people blaming violent movies for suicides. Judas Priest, maybe. Not violent movies. At least not yet.

http://www.csicop.org/articles/20021018-aldrin/buz z-aldrin-punch-video.mpg

Why is it so obvious that Rout is mentally ill? Lots of people have silly theories. I've seen "proofs" that Pi is a rational number, that humans are all descended from Martians, that the international monetary system is a conspiracy of Jews, freemasons, Catholics, and the British Royal family... Perfectly "normal" people believe this crap. Hell, more than one popular TV show celebrates it! And some well meaning fools waste a lot of time trying to debunk silly theories. Which is a lost cause -- this stuff comes from a need to believe, and need to feel important. Very basic human desires, and not symptoms of mental illness!

The operator of the League site, Bill Bennetta, posted on the Skeptic list today on this subject. He said he was interviewed for the Washington Post piece, and gave the journo various straightforward examples of Hakim's deception in her previous books. This got edited down to "Even amid all the acclaim, one textbook group accused Hakim of writing in errors."

Actually, the League didn't "accuse" her of anything; they darn well proved it, so far as I can see. But who's ever going to be able to check for themselves, while the League is anonymised as "one textbook group"?

Well, here are the references the Post doesn't want you to see. Check 'em out here, here and here (a search reveals a few more, too).

Basically, Hakim gets stuff wrong, and just loves calling her own religious beliefs "history". Other people's don't get the same treatment.

Maybe she'll be just great at inspiring kids with the majesty and humanity of the scientific endeavour, tra la. Her past work doesn't bode well, though.

Can science journalism do a better job of helping people distinguish science from pseudoscience?

Skeptical Inquirer and Skeptic Magazine do a good job.

Unfortunately there are magazines based on pseudoscience that make it to the bookshelves; not only the crystal-waving, aura-reading kind, but even a few that seem on the surface to be legitimate scientific publications, until you see the bizarre anti-environmentalism or cold fusion stuff.

Nope.

Dear lord! Are they showing Pokemon to suspected criminals now??

What are the criteria by which a circle is judged 'authentic'

Have these criteria been published and agreed upon for more than a few months?

Which circles qualify according to these criteria? (Be specific)

What have you seen that makes you think that any of these formations are authentic?

How do you analyze all these far-out ideas? The basic crop circle is just an artifact we find that could be made by people. Why in the world would you associate ET's with crop circles? There is no evidence connecting crop circles and ET's. There is no need to hypothesize ET's to explain crop circles. More likely the plants have acquired distributed intelligence and are talking to us than these are made by ET's.

Excellent point.

For those of you who are interested in this, you can visit Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal which publishes a '+5 Insightful' magazine the Sketpical Inquirerer. The magazine covers all sorts of crackpot type claims and shoots holes in them in a rigorous scientific way. (Including the fake moon landing conspiracy theories.)

For the most part, it is not the crackpots themselves, it is the damage and dilution they cause in the population of otherwise reasonable people. If you care a lot about it, why not donate a subscription of the magazine to a local high school or something.

Anybody pushing the "it's a fake" or "it might be a fake" looks like an ignorant moron. So I am quite surprised (and a little disgusted) that there are so many posts here yammering about how the moon missions were faked, or the photos were faked, or the rocks are fake. Coming from a group of people that continually yap about how terrible it is that the general population swallows the Microsoft marketing crap, how much damage it does, how much extra it costs, etc; it is ironic how easily some of you have swallowed worse lies than what Microsoft produces.

Excellent point.

For those of you who are interested in this, you can visit Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal which publishes a '+5 Insightful' magazine the Sketpical Inquirerer. The magazine covers all sorts of crackpot type claims and shoots holes in them in a rigorous scientific way. (Including the fake moon landing conspiracy theories.)

For the most part, it is not the crackpots themselves, it is the damage and dilution they cause in the population of otherwise reasonable people. If you care a lot about it, why not donate a subscription of the magazine to a local high school or something.

Anybody pushing the "it's a fake" or "it might be a fake" looks like an ignorant moron. So I am quite surprised (and a little disgusted) that there are so many posts here yammering about how the moon missions were faked, or the photos were faked, or the rocks are fake. Coming from a group of people that continually yap about how terrible it is that the general population swallows the Microsoft marketing crap, how much damage it does, how much extra it costs, etc; it is ironic how easily some of you have swallowed worse lies than what Microsoft produces.

NASA got itself into this problem by presenting itself as a frontier organization, a group of heroic explorers. And to maintain that image, they are wasting lots of money on useless projects like the space shuttle and the space station.

The technology bleed-through from the moon explorations has paved the way for things of wide variety, like Oakley glassed, Tang, ceramic insulators, new engine fuels and designs, etc.

I wouldn't call it useless. Instead, it forms one significant reason the USA has many technological advantages. All that technology has now become part of daily life.

Presenting the space missions with "heroes" also has advantages in maintaining public support, so that the massive technology thrust funded by NASA can continue to contribute to US technology commerce.

I kinda liked Buzz Aldrin's response to the moon hoaxers the best.

My favorite way to refute psychics is a joke: "I don't believe in psychics, because you have to make an appointment".

So, go out there and do your job... :-)

If skepticism is your hobby, you should check out Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) magazine. Carl Sagan used to be a contributor. CSICOP encourages the critical investigation of paranormal and fringe-science claims from a responsible, scientific point of view and disseminates factual information about the results of such inquiries to the scientific community and the public.

but mostly it is some relentless ass-kickin' of pseudoscience and the paranormal. :-)

The stems are bent without damange to the plant and the area of the circles displays odd flux vortices.

These issues and more are addressed in CSICOP's "Circular Reasoning: The 'Mystery' of Crop Circles and Their 'Orbs' of Light":

Hoaxers, most croppies insisted, could not be responsible because the plants were only bent and not broken, and there were no footprints or other traces of human activity. Skeptics replied that from mid-May to early August the English wheat was green and pliable, and could only be broken with difficulty.